Biography

Education
BS Biology, University of Texas at Arlington
PhD Biology, University of South Carolina

Professional Experience
Doctor Ellis serves as the Chairman of the Department of Biological and Physical Sciences and as the advisor for Pre-Veterinary, Pre-Dentistry, Pre-Pharmacy, and Pre-Physical Therapy majors.

Doctor Ellis has held teaching and/or research appointments at the University of South Carolina, Iowa State University, the College of William and Mary, the University of New Orleans, and Delgado Community College. He is also the recipient of an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Fellow of the Tissue Culture Association, served as the President of the Invertebrate section of the Tissue Culture Association, and has served on the board of directors of the Tissue Culture Association and the Louisiana Ornithological Society. Doctor Ellis was the recipient of the BellSouth Telecommunication Foundation Endowed Chair at Our Lady of Holy Cross College from 2002 to 2005.

Doctor Ellis has authored or coauthored several articles and book chapters dealing with cell biology of oysters, molecular biology of marine bivalves, biochemistry of crabs and bivalves, and cell and molecular biology of thraustochytrids. He has presented numerous papers at local, national, and international meetings. He has served as a grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Sea Grant Program, the Department of Agriculture, and the US-Israel Bi-national Science Program; a reviewer of articles in several scientific journals; a past member of the editorial board of the journal: Methods of Cell Science; and a reviewer for textbooks in Biochemistry, Immunology, Genetics, and Microbiology. He has also received over $900,000 in grant support for equipment, student support, and basic research.

Doctor Ellis continues to be interested in a broad range of biological problems but those problems that develop information on regulation of amino acid metabolism, microbiology of oysters, and the cell and molecular biology of marine invertebrates are his primary focus.

Doctor Ellis has also been part of an initiative to establish a Food Science program at the University of Holy Cross. The project is funded by a grant From the Joe W. and Dorothy Brown Foundation. The program is accredited by SACS-COC and began accepting students in the Fall of 2015.

Professional Organizations
American Society of Microbiologists
American Society of Cell Biologists
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Society for Applied Microbiology
Sigma Xi
American Society for the Advancement of Science
Institute of Food Technologists
American Chemical Society
National Science Teachers Association